Forever August ✔️

chapter seventeen

"baby it's too hard, and too scarred
for this to work again."
- the japanese house
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THE SKY OPENED up with a thunderous crack and rain poured through, turning the sand below Aurora's feet to mud. She stood at the shoreline, toes touching the waves, staring into the water that seemed to stretch on endlessly before her.

It was night time. The sky was black, the water a midnight blue that turned it lethal. But Aurora didn't flinch away from the impending danger. Instead, she stood there frozen, her mind locked on the girl she had lost a year before.

When the storm slowed to a gentle drizzle, footsteps sounded behind Aurora, feet trudging through mud. She still didn't turn around, eyes locked into the water.

"Rory?" Gus called.

She couldn't find the energy to face him. Her cheeks were stained with water. At least now she could pretend it was from the rain.

"What are you doing?" His voice was cautious, concerned. The same tone Gus had used that very first day on the cliff's edge.

"Aurora?" he asked again, his voice sounding closer this time.

Aurora could hear him clearly, but the waves took her back to another time when it was Josephine beside her, stripping off her clothing and wading into the water.

Gus spoke again but Aurora ignored him. She grabbed the hem of her tank top and pulled it over her head. Then she unbuttoned her shorts, pulled them down her legs and kicked them onto the sand.

"What ar—"

She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, sliding it off her shoulders, down her arms then casting it aside with her other clothes. With only her underwear left, she tugged them down her legs until she stood there naked in the pale glow of the moonlight.

Aurora could hear Gus breathing loudly behind her; she could practically hear his accelerated heart beat and feel the heat rushing to his cheeks. Still, she didn't look back. Instead, Aurora walked into the water until it covered her entire body and only her head was left above.

The entire surface of the ocean was black, aside from a small patch that the moon shone directly onto. Aurora swam until she stood in the illuminated water and stared at the moon. She remembered sitting on the sand and watching Jo do just this. Aurora turned her head to the side, half expecting Jo to be with her now, but the ocean was empty.

"Rory!" Gus called her name from shore but Aurora felt outside of her body, like she was floating in the clouds and watching these two strangers from high above. The curious boy and the girl who could never be saved.

With a final sigh, Aurora whispered, "Goodbye," and turned her back to the moonlight and the warmth of the laughter she could still hear drifting around the waves.

Her eyes instantly locked onto Gus' as she swam back to shore until the water was shallow enough for her toes to dig into the muddy ground and walk. Gus' eyes were wide, his hands balled into fists at his side. As she walked out of the ocean, just before her bare chest passed the water's surface, Gus quickly turned around.

Besides herself, Aurora smiled. His innocence, his goodness, never failed to surprise her.

She stood behind him now on the sand, picking up her clothes and putting them back on. "Are you okay?" Gus asked.